NASA’s Super Smart — and Awesome — Instagram Take on Cosmos

The numbers for the premiere episode of FOX’s reboot of the classic space show Cosmos have yet to come in — but we already know that nearly 35,000 people actively liked one particular moment. It wasn’t a moment on the show itself, but rather the well-timed appearance of the oldest known star, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope:

In a spot-on second-screen choice, NASA capitalized on the much-anticipated Neil deGrasse Tyson broadcast with a series of tie-in Instagram posts that were, for the most part, far more fascinating than the show’s official tweets. Given that recent studies have shown that nearly half of Americans are on another screen while watching TV — and more than two-thirds of those people are actively looking for content related to the show they’re watching— the decision by the agency to watch and post makes lots of sense.

This may be as close to being Iron Man as we may see, but the real goal is fairly simple. “The real dream is to be completely free,” said Yves Rossy. Yves Rossy built his own jetpack and flies it. In the video you’ll see Rossy fly over Dubai and surrounding desert. It’s breath taking. Rossy… Continue Reading

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is now just under 38,000 miles in Ceres orbit, an almost Texas size 600 mile wide asteroid, defined as a dwarf planet. Soon we’ll know all its dark secrets, including the two shining eyes looking out from its surface. The dwarf planet composition consist of rock and ice. The next stop for… Continue Reading

Hawaii Island view taken by Samantha Cristoforetti aboard the ISS. Volcanoes are clearly seen from the ISS traveling around Earths orbit at 4.76 miles per second (7.66 km/s). Samantha Cristoforetti, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and Captain in the Italian Air Force of Italian nationality, is currently a Flight Engineer and living on the ISS from November… Continue Reading

Now what? What do you pack? It’s not like you can just walk over to Wal-Mars. With all the buzz going around the last 100 finalist going to Mars, I got to thinking about the things they probably can’t part with. Family sure, but what about an iPod full of photos, music and books in… Continue Reading